Path of the Ocean
by Shadow is Jean Valjean
Summary: Shadowpaw was never the happiest cat in ThunderClan. His rouge father and mother are on a rampage, killing cats at random and yearning for vengeance. Shadowpaw has always thought he had nothing to lose, but now will have to face how very wrong he was...
1. The Discovery of Shadowkit

The morning sun shone over the forest, bathing it in its warm rays. Small scuttling sounds resounded through the forest. In a clump of bracken, a dark brown cat with a gray tail crouched, pinpointing the location of a mouse. The cat pounced and caught it.

"There you go, Scallionclaw," he mewed.

"Graytail, you aren't my mentor anymore, stop acting like that!" replied a calico she-cat

Graytail let out a _mrrrow_ of laughter and said, "Come on, you know I can't help it."

"If you two are quite done," said another she-cat who had emerged from the bracken, "we need enough prey for the Clan. Do you want our hunting patrol to be humiliated in front of Silverstar by only catching one mouse? He'd expect more from his deputy, Graytail."

"Oh, stop fussing like a queen over her kits, Poppyleaf," Scallionclaw meowed back.

"Well, she has a point," mewed Graytail.

"Stop talking!" Poppyleaf suddenly whispered, "Can you hear that?"

"Sounds like a small mewl, somewhere nearby," Scallionclaw replied. "Hey! Where's

Graytail?"

"Come here," Graytail mewed from a clump of undergrowth, "look at this!"

In a clearing, Graytail stood over a small, shadowy black kit.

He meowed, "Shadows. He reminds me of the shadows. Yet not in a bad way."

"Let's take him to Silverstar now," said Poppyleaf, ignoring the stares she got from the other two cats, "we can name him Shadowkit, since you seem to like that. I feel a touch of destiny about him, though. Something...great. He will grow to be a powerful warrior someday."

Scallionclaw picked up the little kit and said, "His scent is of Twolegplace and some ShadowClan. Isn't that suspicious?"

"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't," Poppyleaf meowed, "But we can ask Silverstar that. Hurry or that kit is going to freeze!"

And that is how Shadowkit came to ThunderClan.


	2. Apprenticed at Last

Silverstar stood on the Highrock and yowled, "Let all cats old enough to catch their own prey gather for a Clan meeting!"

Shadowkit felt a rush of excitement. Today, he was going to become a warrior apprentice! He knew about his life's dark beginning, but that was not going to get in his way!

Silverstar continued, "Shadowkit, you have reached the age of six moons, and it is time for you to be apprenticed. From this day on, until you receive your warrior name, you will be known as Shadowpaw. Your mentor will be Scallionclaw. I hope Scallionclaw will pass all she knows to you."

Then Silverstar called Scallionclaw up, "Scallionclaw, you are ready to take on an apprentice. You received excellent training from Graytail, and you have shown yourself to be cunning and brave. You will be the mentor of Shadowpaw, and I expect you to pass on all you know to him."

"Shadowpaw! Shadowpaw!" his Clan shouted.

Shadowpaw touched noses with his new mentor, Scallionclaw. He looked into her blue eyes, and saw pride in them. Pride in him! He felt a warm tingle go down his back, and could not help feeling one with his Clan.

As Shadowpaw made his way to apprentice den, he walked up to a golden tabby she-cat with green eyes.

"Hi, I'm Shadowpaw."

"Grasspaw. I've heard things about you."

"Oh."

"I hear you were found in the forest near the border between ShadowClan and ThunderClan!"

"Hm. You like to talk don't you?" said Shadowpaw, hastily changing the subject.

"So Silverstar tells me. Once I-"

"Congratulations on _finally _being accepted into the Clan." The scorn in this cat's voice told Shadowpaw that this cat would never let him forget he was not born in ThunderClan.

"I'm Thrushpaw," said the cat, flicking his tail in an irritating way. "And you're Shadowpaw, the rouge born apprentice, right?"

"Does it matter?" Shadowpaw asked coolly.

"Aren't you a rouge?"

"No!" Shadowpaw mewed indignantly, "I am a loyal ThunderClan cat, training to be a warrior!"

"Come on Shadowpaw," Grasspaw meowed, "He annoys everybody. Even Broookpelt, and she's hard to annoy."

As she led Shadowpaw the rest of the way to the apprentice den, Shawdowpaw thought about his past. _Why do the other cats treat me like a stranger? Have actions instead of words shown that I am not Clan born? I don't think so, because if they had, I would probably not still be in ThunderClan. _

They reached the apprentice den, and Shadowpaw was still musing over his encounter with Thrushpaw. _Is that how I'm going to be treated until I do more that prove my loyalty? If it is, I say, bring it on!_

"This is the apprentice den," said Grasspaw. "You can sleep next to me, if you want."

"Sure."

"Shadowpaw?"

"Yes?" The hesitancy in Grasspaw's voice made Shadowpaw nervous. He may not know very much about Grasspaw, but he _did_ know she was never hesitant to speak.

"Were you really born a rouge?"

Oh, well. He had been expecting this sooner or later.

"Yes." He meowed, offering nothing more.

But Grssspaw seemed satisfied.

Shadowpaw pushed some moss around until he had made a comfortable nest next to

Grasspaw's.

Thrushpaw finished doing whatever he had been doing and came in the den. He seemed friendly enough but , but when Shadowpaw glanced in his direction, Thrushpaw glared at him. Shadowpaw understood that just because he was an apprentice an accepted by a few of his Clanmates, anyone in close contact with Thrushpaw would be told to hate him.

Thrushpaw seemed to understand what Shadowpaw was thinking. When another apprentice came in, he whispered loudly, "See that cat? He's a rouge."

The cat's eyes widened, and he walked over to Shadowpaw.

"Hey!" he meowed. "I'm Burdockpaw. Thrushpaw says you're a rouge! Is that true?"

"No. my mother and father were rouges, but when I could, I ran away from them."

Shadowpaw noticed that only Grasspaw and Burdockpaw were listening, and Shadowpaw was glad of that. This part of his dark beginning was _not_ something he really wanted to talk about. But he did. "I knew that wasn't my destiny. I saw Clan cats running, fighting, and falling. My father, Bane, yowled a war cry. More Clan cats were torn, bloody, and dead. Those cats were completely innocent, but Bane did it anyway. He yowled again, but this time in triumph. I was terrified. I didn't want the Clan cats to suffer _more_, so to distract him, I came closer and closer. Only then, I turned and ran as fast as I could. I had not gone far, however, before a gray she-cat picked my up. I didn't struggle, because I knew she wouldn't take me back to Bane. When she set me down in a log, breathless, I stood up and tried to leave. But she blocked me and said, 'Were those rouges your mother and father?'

I nodded, hoping she would go easy on me.

Her gaze softened, and she said, 'Why were you trying to leave them? Surely a kit can't leave it's mother, at least.'

I mewed a weak reply, sounding a little more confident than I really was. 'That life doesn't feel right. It's too bad, and I don't like it!'  
'I'll take you somewhere else, and maybe you'll like it more than you liked the rouge's life, hmm?'"

"Wow!" exclaimed Burdockpaw, "That's a story the elders would probably like to hear. That was pretty brave of you."

"Well yes, but- wait, what? I'm brave?"

Burdockpaw laughed. "That or you so good at hiding your fear that you forgot it and made yourself seem brave."

"But I was scared!"

Burdockpaw looked at him seriously this time. "Being brave isn't about not being scared," he said. "Being brave is about feeling that fear, and deciding whether or not to let that fear influence what you do. If you let fear govern everything you do, you're a coward. But if you feel the fear, and choose to ignore it because you believe that is the right thing to do, you show true bravery. You are a good and brave Clan warrior, whatever Thrushpaw says. I think he's jealous because he's not as brave as you are."

Shadowpaw didn't know what to say about that. The gratitude must've shown on Shadowpaw's face, because Burdockpaw smiled and meowed gently, "Come on, let's get some sleep. You've got a big day tomorrow, and so does Grasspaw and me. We haven't been apprenticed very much longer than you have."

Shadowpaw looked down at his companion and noticed that she was asleep. He turned to Burdockpaw, nodded, and fell asleep. And dreamed.


	3. The Dream That Never Left Him

**[A/N: I am soooooooo sorry for leaving you guys that long! No excuses, I promise to StarClan I will update WAY more often than I have been of late. Once again, I am sorry, you may kill me if you wish to. ]**

Shadowpaw dreamed of ThunderClan that night.

Screeches filled the air, and the forest floor was spattered with blood. Some cats were furiously fighting, but many were dead.

Shadowpaw saw Silverstar and his father, Bane, hissing and clawing at each other. Bane aimed a particularly strong swipe at Silverstar, who ducked. But then a rouge whom Shadowstroke did not recognize jumped out from a bush and attacked Silverstar, with absolutely no mercy. Silverstar tried valiantly to defend himself, but under the rouges' combined attack, he fell. Shadowpaw's brave, kind leader was killed, and Shadowpaw felt horrible.

Bane jumped up on the Highstones and yowled, "Your Clan leader is dead. This is your last chance to surrender."

Shadowpaw saw Grasspaw look in his direction, and he almost called out to her before remembering she could not hear him. She turned away, and licked a small, brown body on the forest floor. Shadowpaw recognized the fallen cat. _Burdockpaw!_Shadowpaw stared at his fallen friend, and and he felt an enormous grief well up inside of him. He tore his gaze away from his friend and looked back Bane, hatred billowing in his body. He saw Graytail walking slowly up to negotiate with Bane. Graytail looked hurt; he was limping, and many bleeding scratches showed in his dusty brown body.

Bane hissed and meowed angrily, "You will surrender, or all of this Clan dies!"

Graytail looked exhausted, but he bristled and hissed back. "Why are you attacking us? We haven't hurt you!" Graytail's eyes showed a tired, but still mischievous glint. "Until now, that is."

"You took my son," Bane replied, "it was many moons ago, but I'll never forget. All of that litter died, except him, and you stole him from us!" Bane's claws unsheathed.

"No, we did not 'steal' him, he came to us, because the path you placed before your son was not his destiny!" Graytail spoke with rising hostility.

"Where is he, then?" Bane growled, "you could be lying to me!"

Graytail was about to reply, but at that moment, Shadowpaw felt a tug on his paws and whiskers, and he could no longer see the horrible scene before him.

Shadowpaw looked where he had been called to. A white she-cat sat, tail twitching, watching him. He walked nearer to her and mewed, "Where are we?"

She didn't reply, but continued to study him. Shadowpaw began to feel exposed and open.

"StarClan."

"What?"

"You are in StarClan, young apprentice. What did you see?"

"Bane attacking ThunderClan."

"Just as I thought. You should not have seen that."

"Well I did, and it was awful! How can I prevent it?"

"That is not your destiny."

Shadowpaw was tired of hearing about his destiny. He knew he shouldn't talk back to a StarClan cat, but he wanted to save Burdockpaw and Silverstar.

"Then I will _make_it my destiny," he meowed.

The StarClan cat laughed and said, "you really care, don't you? The stubborn ones often prove to be the most caring. I was like you once..." the she-cat eye's grew wistful, and Shadowpaw could tell that she was thinking about her past.

"Really?"

"Inquisitive as well as stubborn, eh? Silverstar chose well in you."

"What do you mean?"

"He chose you to- ah, I can't tell you. Someday you will endure suffering beyond what you have ever faced. But afterwards, you will have a chance to save those you love," her eyes twinkled, "or watch them lose everything and everyone they love."

"How will I know when to act?" Shadowpaw spoke very seriously.

"StarClan will tell. Now I must go."

"Wait! What's your name, if you won't tell me anything else!"

Shadowpaw could no longer see the she-cat, but he heard her faint meow.

"Icewhisker. Now go, back to where you belong!"

**[End note: Kestrelfeather and Kitty McGold, thank you for reviewing. Also, thanks to the people who have favorited this. You people rock!]**


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